Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dreamer | 1988 | Daniel Quinn | Buy |
| 2 | After Dachau | 2001 | Daniel Quinn | Buy |
| 3 | The Holy | 2002 | Daniel Quinn | Buy |
Quinn’s standalone novels show a wider range than his Ishmael books might suggest. Dreamer, his 1988 debut, is a psychological thriller about a man who drifts between sleeping and waking states in a cycle of growing unease. It draws on Quinn’s interest in abstract expressionism and reads more like a dark character study than the philosophical dialogues he later became known for.
After Dachau (2001) is set in a grim alternate timeline where the Nazis won World War II, and the calendar now counts years “after Dachau.” The story follows a soul that once belonged to a Black American woman during the war, now reborn into an Aryan body, with traumatic memories of the earlier life breaking through. The Holy (2002) is a metaphysical thriller in which a private investigator is hired to research the ancient gods Baal, Ashtoroth, and Moloch, while a man named David Kennesey abandons his family and wanders west into a mountain commune where those old gods may still be active.